Another lovely day.. gardening and the beach.

So it's been another lovely day.. Other than the constant headaches I've been getting lately life has been good. We spent yesterday weeding/thinning the flower gardens and adding mulch out front, and today we went to the beach and reaped the fruits of our efforts in the veggie garden. Tonights plans involve hunting down some of those yummy black raspberries and making some more of my favourite jam with them... I love wild black raspberry jam!..

So.. I know you're here for pics.. so here's some pics..

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This is what I harvested from the garden today. :) The beans were from the first box garden... I was very impressed with how many I got out of there today. The swiss chard is two different mixed colour varieties and the beets are a combination of about 4 different types that needed thinning. Hence, these will be fried up with some butter and sea salt for dinner tonight.. I can't wait.

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We went to the beach today.. Charles Daley Park is lovely.. a bit high on the pebble count.. but very low on the bacteria count. It's one of the cleanest beaches around here and a convenient 5 minutes away. The kids also managed to catch a bunch of tiny little toads while we were there. You can just see Tisha's head coming into the shot as she ran past me.

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The grape vines are finally fruiting! It's been 4 summers in this house.. I've been waiting a long time! This year I gave them a generous helping of compost first thing in the spring and it seems to be really paying off. They are just LOADED with grapes! Of course they are seedless white grapes, so I shouldn't have any trouble getting the kids to eat them. :)

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This is my Delicata Squash patch.. (also known as sweet potato squash). If you have never had this variety of squash you are really missing out on one of the better things in life. I will keep gardening until I die if it means I get to eat these little sweeties every fall!

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Sugar Snap Peas.. These never seem to make it into the house.. They are so tasty I just stick them in my mouth as I'm picking them.. if the kids are nearby and I'm feeling generous I might share..

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Bell Peppers.. mmmm

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More peppers.. We are growing about 5 different varieties this year.. and I know, I know.. I shouldn't grow them so close because they'll all mess each other up and stuff.. but hey.. they're just going into salsa anyways.. so I don't mind! I think they look cool :)

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Now this pic should give you an idea of the diversity of our garden. From left to right you can see sunflowers, tomatoes, swiss chard, celery, pole beans, and strawberry popcorn.. mmmm Also in the bottom left corner.. looking kinda like dill.. is one of my asparagus plants :)

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One of my tomato plants.. I am just amazed at how many tomatoes are on them this year! We have about 10 different varieties or so.. Purple, black, red, orange, yellow, and green. I am not a fan of boring vegetables :)

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A broad shot of the garden.. in this pic you can see carrots (purple, white, yellow AND orange thank you very much), green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, swiss chard (two different mixes of colours), rhubarb, sunflowers, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, 4 different kinds of peppers, tomatoes, popcorn, beans, celery, asparagus, strawberies, beets (5 types I think, 3 colours), herbs, and grape vines!

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A shot from the other side. You can pretty much see the same plants. You can see some of the different colours of swiss chard in the bottom middle there. Also.. I wanna point out the spirals that are holding up my tomatoes. Those things are AWESOME! I <3 them!! Also.. notice my full composter.. we filled that plus three brown bags full of weeds and over crowded plants that needed thinning over the past couple of days!

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These are my box gardens, they are the latest addition to our little veg garden. They are each 4 foot by 4 foot and made of culled lumber at a total cost of $2.25 each. The far one is filled with compost, the close one is 1/4 alpaca poop and 3/4 compost. I'm pretty impressed how well they are doing.
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this pic is from 2 weeks ago to give you an idea of how well they are growing :)

Anyhoo.. hope you're having an awesome day. Feel free to leave me some comments so I know that I'm not writing this just for my own self to read :)

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